Organizing and actions to resist the moral and financial bankrupting of the U.S. through wars against the poor, at home and abroad.

Sunday, August 13, 2017

Stand With Charlottesville, Say No To White Supremacy #DefendCville

Why bring this message to our regular Sunday peace vigil on the bridge? Because here's just some of what white supremacists brought to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia after the town voted to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee from a park there.

(If you're viewing this blog post as an email, here is the photo that accompanied the tweet. This exit to a parking garage is literally next door to the Charlottesville Police Department.)

And this murder where 20 year old James Alex Fields, Jr. from Ohio used a car instead of sticks (video here), killing antiracism protester Heather Heyer and injuring many others. Some people were run over twice as the driver reversed over bodies after hitting them the first time.

"Rescue workers move victims on stretchers after car plowed through a crowd of counter-demonstrators marching through the downtown shopping district August 12, 2017." Getty photo via Heavy.com

Also because:In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist - we must be antiracist. -- Angela DavisAnd this from a student at UVA:

On May 13, after the Charlotteville (Virginia) City Council voted to take down its two Confederacy-honoring statues, "alt-right" leader Richard Spencer led a torch-lit rally of more than 100 racists at the Robert E. Lee statue in Emancipation Park, until recently known as Lee Park.

The predominantly white, Democratic-voting town of some 47,000 people that is home to the prestigious University of Virginia was shocked. The rally was met with protests.
Spencer, who is “credited” with coining the whitewashing term “atl-right,” is a graduate of UVA and president of the Arlington, Va.,-based white supremacist National Policy Institute.

Picking up the momentum, a Ku Klux Klan faction from North Carolina held a rally July 8 near the Jackson statue in Justice Park, until recently known as Jackson Park. The three dozen Klansmen were met by more than 2,000 angry protesters and were only able to hold their “rally” due to a massive police presence.

Calling the Klan event an embarrassing failure, local right-wing blogger Jason Kessler then called for another rally at Emancipation Park. With support from the Virginia Flaggers, a right-wing group that promotes displaying the Confederate battle flag, the call attracted support from a broad range of extremist figures and organizations, including Spencer, the National Socialists (Nazis), Traditional Workers Party (neo-Nazis) and other white-supremacist groups, including some motorcycle gangs, invited for “security.”

Appeals for protesters went out from Black Lives Matter-Charlottesville, Standing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ)-Charlottesville and a group of local clergy members who called for 1,000 religious leaders to come to town to confront the right wing. Noted educator and political activist Cornel West was one of those who responded.

Others urged people to stay away from the right-wing rally. UVA President Teresa Sullivan called on students and faculty to avoid any protests and instead participate in "diversity" events on campus.

That turned out to be unfortunate advice. On Friday evening, Aug. 11, more than 200 fascists marched through the UVA campus, carrying torches. Chanting “You will not replace us!” they surrounded and attacked a small group of Black Lives Matter protesters. It was only then that the police arrived and declared the gathering illegal.

The next day, Aug. 12, some 500 fascists gathered at Emancipation Park, while many more protesters massed in the surrounding streets. Insults morphed into throwing water bottles, then more dangerous projectiles, then fistfights, while the police stayed in the park and ignored the rising tensions.

“People punched and kicked each other during various scuffles, which often were broken up from within crowds, without police intervention,” reported CNN. This despite the fact that more than 1,000 officers were expected to be deployed, according to city officials.

Shortly after the white supremacist rally officially began, protesters broke through metal barriers the police had erected in the park and the State Police called off the rally.
At that point the fascists needed a new mission. Rumors spread that they were going to march on a nearby low-income, predominantly Black housing project. Protesters massed at an intersection on the anticipated march route, intending to block the fascists.

That’s when a car rapidly accelerated and plowed into the crowd of protesters, sending several people flying into the air. The driver then slammed into the back of another car at the intersection and drove away rapidly, in reverse, fleeing the scene.

One person was killed. Nineteen more were injured, nine of whom are in serious or critical condition.

A 20-year-old white male from Ohio has since been arrested and charged with second-degree murder, malicious wounding and leaving the scene of an accident in which someone has died.

Although it was clear that some kind of confrontation was going to happen, not a cop was in the area. It was only after the crash that police showed up - complete with a military-style state police armed personnel carrier, topped by a cop in military garb pointing what appeared to be an automatic weapon at the now-traumatized crowd.

By Saturday evening, Charlottesville was international news and politicians from both major parties were piously condemning the white supremacists. (Trump condemned both the racists and the protesters.) But while it’s easy to blame the Republicans for helping to create the climate that emboldens these reactionaries, the Democrats are equally responsible.
The vote in Charlottesville City Council to take down the city’s two Confederate statues was 3-2. The mayor, a Democrat, voted no. This weekend, the cops, under the authority of the mayor, and the State Police, under the authority of Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe, did not deploy any forces outside the area of the the fascist rally.

Gov. Mcauliffe is now crying crocodile tears over the casualties, but he never activated the National Guard, which supposedly was “monitoring” the situation. The Defenders are not calling on the state to protect us from fascists, just pointing out that they didn't do it.
The Virginia Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality (www.DefendersFJE.blogspot.com) , an affiliate of the United National Antiwar Coalition (www.unacpeace.org), are proud to have answered the call from local groups to come to Charlottesville and stand against the fascists.

We were in the thick of things all day, carrying our banner that read “No shrines to white supremacy - take ‘em down NOW!” (Besides the political message, the heavy canvas banner also stopped four flying bottles.) We were able to assist several people dealing with tear gas attacks. One of our members, a Marine vet and former civilian nurse, applied CPR to one of the people seriously injured in the car attack.

We collaborated in this effort with SURJ-Richmond, which also is supporting the Defenders’ ongoing campaign to win a nine-acre Shockoe Bottom Memorial Park on the site of what once was the epicenter of the U.S. domestic slave trade. (See www.sacredgroundproject.net)

Our Analysis
We believe that the events this weekend in Charlottesville represent a qualitative change in the development of a fascist movement in the United States. We do not believe we are yet facing the kind of threat that emerged in the Thirties in Germany and Italy. That happens when a country is going through a severe economic crisis, the workers are in mass rebellion and the ruling 1 percent fears that it can’t contain social unrest with just the police and legal repression. Their answer is to foster an extremist mass movement to crush all opposition through naked violence.

We are not in that situation today, but we do have a deeply polarized society with many economic problems. The failure of the Democratic Party to offer anything but an anti-worker policy of neo-liberalism is what led to the election of Donald Trump, a racist, misogynist, war-hungry egomaniac who would have felt right at home at the alt-right rally.
In addition, there is a growing racist movement that tells anxious white workers their economic problems are the result of supposedly massive immigration and neoliberal trade deals. (The last part is true.) Claiming that removing Confederate statues is an attack on their racial identity combines economic fears with an appeal to white supremacy to create a movement.

Fascist movements always start small, then grow if they can project an image of strength, appealing to the frightened middle class that no longer believes the government can offer them any relief from economic insecurity. As the movement grows, it pulls in sections of the working class - just as university-educated Spencer and Kessler are aligning with more working-class organizations. To ignore this threat is to allow it to grow. We do that at our peril.

This weekend’s events in Charlottesville offer two important lessons: One, extreme white-supremacist organizations are growing and becoming more aggressive and physically dangerous. And two, we cannot rely on the police to protect us, our communities and our movements.

Progressive forces need to take this threat very seriously and prepare for serious self-defense.